6 Reasons WordPress is a Superior Real Estate Website Platform
I have seen just about every real estate website company on the market. From AgentImage to Z57. I have met hundreds of agents who all seem to have the same complaint, “my website doesn’t provide me any business”, and oddly those same agents don’t know why. They all pay $30 – $50 a month for their website and never get anything back in return. Why is that?
Most of these website companies are being honest, when they sell them a website. They sell a website that can search the MLS and looks relatively decent; but that’s where the website ends. Unfortunately websites that draw traffic and provide business need to go A LOT further than that.
I understand that productive real estate agents don’t have time to extensively study web design, web marketing, search engine optimization, keyword density, blogging techniques, etc. I know you have real estate matter to attend to. The problem is if you know nothing about websites, then you don’t know why your website isn’t performing for you. You certainly don’t know what to look for in a better website. I recommend you pick up “Web Marketing for Dummies”. It’s a great introduction to successful website design and a solid reference as to what is wrong or right with your website.
Whether you plan to employ a team member, hire someone to build a website or plan to do it all yourself, I highly recommend you employ WordPress as a website/blogging platform. Here are 6 reasons WordPress is superior to almost ALL template website platforms on the market.
1. Cost- WordPress is free! Yes, FREE! The only thing you need to pay for is the domain address and hosting. Hosting on average is a whopping $8.00 a month, plus the annual cost of your domain, which is around $10.00 a year. Plus, you OWN the website; you’re not “renting” the website like you are with most other companies.
2. No limits on design- This one is huge! WordPress is a blank canvas, what you do with it is up to you. You have several options, you can purchase a “skin” or “theme” which is a pre-made design that you use as your website. You can also have a customized skin made, which will look however you want, no limits! The costs for themes/skins range from $0.00 – $100.00. Custom skins can be a few hundred dollars. Almost all of which are one time costs.
3. Easy to Customize- WordPress is legendary in its customization abilities. Depending on the skin/theme you are using, you can easily add things to the website that you want. For example, social media buttons, newsletter links, individual listings, images, etc., can all be done easily because in most cases no web coding is required.
4. Easy to Use- WordPress is legendary in another area; its easy to use back office. WordPress makes writing blogs, writing content, adding pages, and making changes extremely easy. That is huge, when compared to real estate website companies who want to charge you to make changes or add anything (which is almost criminal). Adding something to your WordPress website is as easy as updating your Facebook!
5. SEO- Search Engine Optimization is a very important factor. Every agent I know wants to be ranked high on Google for local real estate searches. As an example “Denver bank owned mobile homes” might be something that a consumer looks up on Google. In order for your website to be found for that term, you generally need to have content on your website that mentions “Denver bank owned mobile homes”. In addition, you need to have keywords, URLs, title tags and meta descriptions that reflect those search terms. WordPress makes it very easy to do all of that. I have seen agent websites that made SEO difficult or impossible to do.
6. Blogging- WordPress was originally built and is still built with blogging as its core function. No other blogging platform has mastered the art of SEO, readability, user functions better then WordPress. If you aren’t blogging, you are truly missing out on dominating your niche.
Adding something to your WordPress website is as easy as updating your Facebook!
I know this blog is very technical, and I apologize for that. I try my best to make my blogs easy to understand. So, let me leave you with this. If your website is plain, looks like everyone else’s, has little to no content, hard to customize, difficult to blog on, then I know you aren’t getting ANY business online (am I right?). If you want real estate leads to find you online, then you need to make the change to WordPress. I barely scratched the surface on the features and functions of WordPress and how they can help you in your online goals. Do yourself a favor, do some research.
When you’re ready, check out this FREE 23 minute tutorial on how to do everything yourself! You’re welcome!
If you have questions, please CONTACT US and we will help answer your questions and get you on the right path.
